Happy National Fried Chicken Day, Kentucky 7.06.2012

Like any good Kentucky native, I have a long and storied history with fried chicken. When I was just a sprout, Colonel Sanders would come to my grandma’s house to break bread with my grandfather.

Big Jim raised Duroc hogs and cured their hams in a smokehouse in my grandma’s back yard. Over the decades he became known as one of the best sources for cured meats in the Cumberland Highlands region of southeastern Kentucky. When I started my bacon curing project last year, I wondered if I had inherited the gene that allowed him to put out peerless hams and pork bellies.

I had.

Of course, by the time I was old enough to be turned loose with an antique cast iron skillet filled with bubbling lard, my dad was kind enough to give me his recipe and technique for fried chicken.

The photo here is of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken in Corbin, Kentucky. It is now a museum that also serves fried chicken. My mom was a real estate

Eat Where It All Began. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Corbin, Kentucky.

broker who put Colonel Sanders house on the market after he passed in 1980.

I’ve got a history with fried chicken.

As a child, going to the Colonel’s joint was a big treat. Back then, Sanders himself was often in the kitchen walking around with an apron wrapped around his considerable girth. The food was served on bone plates too, not the plastic ware you get these days.

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